Conventional medical dressings are used for a variety of reasons, such as wound dressings, post-surgical dressings, and other specialized situations. The functions of conventional medical dressings may include protecting a wound site and protecting against microbes. In some instances, a conventional medical dressing may be used when victims experience serious traumas or war wounds in remote locations. For example, conventional medical dressings may be applied to the victims before medical attention is available, which creates a problem of trapping debris, dirt and ever-present contaminating microorganisms from the surrounding environment within the wound site. Another problem occurs when adding antimicrobial agents to conventional medical dressings. The added antimicrobial agents tend to be overly aggressive, causing tissue damage, or too mild, failing to protect against a broad spectrum of microbes. Use of the antimicrobial agents in medical dressings has presented a challenge.
In other instances, antimicrobial agents are used to prepare a surgical site. Typically, use of the antimicrobial agents includes cleansing the skin with alcohol followed by povidone iodine, or alternatively cleansing of the skin with alcohol followed by chlorhexidine. However, once prepared in this manner, the surgical site is vulnerable to recontamination via touch-borne or air borne organisms, which may lead to transmitting the organisms into a patient's surgical site, tissue, or possibly bloodstream. Thus, preventing possible bacterial contamination around the pre-surgical site has presented a challenge.
Yet another challenge with bacterial contamination occurs with catheters and drainage tubes. Catheters may allow drainage of fluids, injection of fluids, or access by surgical instruments and drainage tubes allow drainage of fluids. A problem occurs with prolonged use of the catheters or the drainage tubes, which creates a vulnerability of an infection at a point of entry (i.e., catheter site or drainage site). Skin in the immediate vicinity of a catheter site or a drainage site may be contaminated with skin bacteria, such as pseudomonas aeruginosa, staphylococcus aureus, and the like. The bacteria in the skin around the catheter site or the drainage site may enter a patient's bloodstream and may pose life-threatening challenges. Thus, preventing possible bacterial contamination around the catheter site or the drainage site presents another challenge.